Chapter 9

Fares woke up later to the sound of giggling. With a big frown on his face, he opened his eyes tiredly.

"What's all that noise about? Layla shut up already it's still too early in the morning!" He said as his eyes saw a blurry figure.

Focusing his eyes more, he could make out the person in front of him. It was a little girl barely 12 years old with cute firey-red twin tails.

"Aaahhhh!" Fares was so startled that he fell from god knows where he was laying.

Intense pain shot throughout his body. He tried to hold it in, but it was too intense for someone who barely took care of his body.

He heard more giggling to the side, so he turned his head around to look at the little girl giggling at him.

"What happened to you? And why did you turn to a child?" That was the first thought that popped up in his head when he saw her.

'Wait that's not right, how can a person just shrink in size?' As he was thinking about this, he heard the little girl talking gibberish that he didn't understand.

"Sister Zena! The weak man woke up!" The little girl called to her sister.

After some rustling sounds, someone walked in through… well, the doorway.

'Wait, where am I anyway? It should be somebody's home, but it looks more like a room drilled into a cave. Who could even do something like that? The room has smooth enough edges that I refuse to believe is naturally formed.'

As he was thinking, he saw a familiar figure enter the room. It was the girl that saved him when he first came to this place.

"Are you feeling okay now?" She said, then hit her head lightly, remembering he couldn't understand her at all.

She got closer to him and checked out his wounds worriedly.

Zena was a nice girl living in the village with her sister, she always goes on hunting for both of them. That day though, she saw a man getting attacked by an ordinary beast and thought 'I have to save him.'

She's always vigilant when hunting, but on that day he made the meat taste better than anything she had ever eaten, that she couldn't help but eat a lot of it. Forgetting that a lot of mutated beast meat gets her body into a deep sleep to be able to digest the energy in it.

And that was a fatal mistake in the wild, luckily the weak human she saved didn't abandon her to die and fought with his life on the line sustaining deep injuries.

So she carried him back to the village and asked the village healer to treat his wounds.

When Fares saw her getting closer, his heart started beating wildly. When she was close enough that he could feel her breath on his bare skin, his heart started thumping in his chest, his breathing quickened, and his mind went blank.

Seeing his wounds all fine now, Zena wondered if he was in pain. He was breathing too deeply and quickly for it to be normal.

So she carried him princess style to the village healer.

Fares was so embarrassed that his face was beet red, but he couldn't even resist. Let alone that he was too injured to move, her grip was too strong for some reason.

They got out of the house and were so shocked to see what this place is.

The place has a very high ceiling from which hung cyan-colored crystals that lit up this whole place perfectly. It looked as if the place had been carved deep into the mountain, a very large one at that.

There were buildings made of stone all around him, each with a slightly different style, with 'roads' paved nicely linking the buildings together.

After some time, they stood in front of a large building that has two floors, and even though it was still made of rocks it was nicely decorated with tree leaves on the roof and sides. With wooden doors and windows, giving it a cozy 'hut' feeling.

There was even a sign made of wood by the side with some inscriptions on it that Fares couldn't understand.

Zena slammed open the door with her strong legs, startling everyone inside.

There were 4 people inside. An old lady, 2 women, and a child who looked rather pale.

"What are you doing Zena?!" The old lady looked a little annoyed at getting interrupted.

"Healer Raya, I think something is wrong with him, could you please look at him quick?" Zena pleaded.

"I am very busy now with the kid now, and it may be contagious, you can put him on the bed over there for now." Healer Raya said sternly.

"But…" Zena tried to argue back but looking at the healer's stern glare she felt chills running down her back.

So she went ahead and put Fares on the bed at the back and waited beside him.

When he was finally put down he breathed easy and sat down taking in the details around him and trying to figure out where was he.

He looked around and sure enough, everybody just wore tree leaves as 'clothes', but what intrigued him was that everyone wore leaves made out of different trees, which's pretty obvious by the patterns.

When his eyes settled on the boy, he frowned.

'This kid. His breathing is irregular, and his chest doesn't inflate on the right side with each breath. I need to get a closer look.' Fares thought as he stood up and approached the boy.

Healer Raya put her hand on the boy's back and used her energy to try nursing the boy back to his health.

But it was different this time, she hasn't been stuck against a disease like this in a long while.

Fares was about to close in when he saw a light come out of the old lady's hands, he froze in shock.

'Don't tell me, is this what novels call magic? It can't be, right? There has to be a reasonable answer. I didn't transmigrate or something, right?... Right?'

'No calm down, I am pretty sure I was in an untouchable soul form until I came to this place.' Fares thought as he took a deep breath and continued towards the kid.

When he reached there the old lady already had sweat dripping off her face, after a few more seconds she stopped and panted lightly.

Fares understood that even if he tried to explain nobody would understand him, so he went in and kneeled behind the boy sitting on the ground and put his ears to his back.

Everyone there was shocked, starting from Zena and to Healer Raya. Zena never thought that letting him walk on would bring a disaster.

He was interfering with Healer Raya's healing session.

Zena stood up, going to Fares to pull him back.

Before she could, Fares turned around to them and put a hand over the other in a cutting motion.

"Is there a knife here?" he said.

Everyone looked at him dumbfounded, what does this idiot plan to do with a knife?

Naturally, they understood him, they use knives every day to cut their game with.

Thinking that nobody understood him he looked around, he found a decorative knife hanging on the wall, so he went and grabbed it. And to his luck, it wasn't a decorative knife it had a genuine sharp blade.

Fares went to the fireplace at the corner of the room. It was lit and had a rock-made cauldron above it with some weird dark green stuff boiling in it.

Putting the knife into the fire, Fares waited a little while until he started feeling the knife getting warm in his hand.

He then returned to the boy's side while everyone present still staring at him with wide eyes.

After counting the ribs, he made an incision at the level of the 9th rib space at the side of his chest, put his mouth to the incision he made, and sucked deeply until blood started pouring out.

Then he removed his mouth and sat back, sighing in relief.

Everyone woke up from their daze and Zena pulled him back, while the old lady looked at the boy with now slightly glowing eyes.

The kid's mother kept glaring at Fares for a while before returning to look at her son that was now bleeding dark reddish-brown blood.